In the Garden

"Lantern," oil on canvas, 20x16

Sometimes a limited perspective is useful. This painting focuses on a metal reproduction of an Asian lantern hanging on a shepherd's crook in one of my gardens. The retaining wall behind and the trees above formed a wonderful backdrop in this shady spot. 

This particular work has been a favorite of mine and remains in my private collection
 

Anthony's Garden Redux

Our Saturday sketch group revisited a favorite spot last weekend--a private garden that welcomed us warmly a couple of weeks ago. The day was delightfully sunny with a faint breeze. Our group scattered through the garden, many finding a place to sketch near the tall central fountain. Although I've drawn this particular feature numerous times, it continues to be a challenge. Giant mature trees and well-maintained hedges and shrubs add to the peaceful atmosphere. Although this is a working fountain and was running at the time I chose to depict it without attempting to render the myriad rivulets and splashes. 

As is my usual practice, I began with a fairly accurate graphite drawing of the fountain. When drawing any vertical object--bottles for example--it's useful to establish a vertical as a center line and draw the symmetrical parts equally distant. In general, when drawing it's useful to draw shapes rather than objects, so I made the bowl shapes match as closely, side to side, as possible. 

After drawing, I added colors in a range of values and chroma. The changing colors of the fountain were the result of reflected sun, since the basin below is painted blue. To bring the fountain forward in the image I added ink lines to show shapes and suggest ornamentation. Distant shapes like the windows were kept looser, with edges considerably less distant. 

 

 

Demo Garden

For the past several years, the gardens downtown that are part of Better Homes and Gardens magazine have been an occasional sketching subject. The gardens are beautiful in concept and execution, and represent outstanding examples of garden design and maintenance. Because the gardens are used for various publications and purposes, they are only open to the public Fridays, noon to 2pm, May through September. 

"Better Homes Test Garden," wc/ink

Last Friday was my first visit to the gardens this year, on a beautiful late spring day. The sun was out and a light breeze played through the branches above. I sat in the central paved area--patio?--at one of several wrought iron tables, next to its central, multi-tier fountain. Others were sitting here and there while more toured the pathways among glowing flower beds. My view was to the north, toward downtown Des Moines but screened by large evergreens and deciduous trees. In front of those were bright red Japanese maples, stuck by mid-day sun and footed by a small green meadow. In front of the green, spiral-trunked crabapples stood like sentinels. The fountain bubbled and frothed just to my left as I tried to capture the multiple layers, colors and textures. This sketch began as a graphite sketch to which watercolor and ink were added.

Plein Air Sketch

This week one of our sketch group members kindly hosted us at her (and her husband's) farm a few dozen miles from Des Moines. Their farm occupies a big patch of rolling prairie east of the city, where they raise cattle and lease much of it to others. Lisa, our host, has a small studio in a converted shed on the farm, which has many subjects for sketching--huge grain bins, barns, farm implements of all sorts (historical and contemporary). They even have a century-old Ford farm truck in running order. 

"At Lisa's Farm," oil on panel, 9x12

When I paint outdoors I'm desperate at first to cover as much of the bright white bareness as I can. For green landscapes--pretty common--I start by washing the surface with burnt sienna or an earth red, thinned to a watery consistency. After that wash-in I sometimes work the red earth monochrome into a relatively detailed underpainting, but sometimes I move on more quickly and loosely. In this case I washed the lower half or so with red earth, leaving the sky area white. Then I laid in the series of conical shapes that constitute the evergreens as simple loose shapes. The shed (her studio) was too red so I wiped out much of the red color with a piece of rag and turp. The brushes I used for those steps were the largest in my roll. 

Next I mixed a series of greens using cerulean blue, sap green, ivory black, cad yellow and y. ochre. and used them to paint the trees and grassland, varying the mixes without premixing, doing all wet-in-wet. The studio building was simplified and horizontals added to suggest distant grassland (left) and tree shadows (right) to provide an illusion of depth. Working with progressively smaller brushes I painted the building carefully to separate values and give it volume and shape. Then working into the foreground I used lighter mixes of green, raising the chroma and enlarging the brush strokes to suggest the more near grassy patches. During the entire painting process I was at pains to keep the vast majority of edges soft and vague, saving sharper shapes for emphasis--note the studio eaves and roof line and the peaks of a limited number of evergreens. The piece is still wet and unsigned, pending a rest and further review. 

Sabasa

"Maria Garcia Perez de Castro, after Goya," oil on gessoed hardboard, 24x18

As I've written in previous posts, copying master paintings has long been a practical way for painters to learn how those masters achieved their effects, particularly with oil paint. Of course copy practice with other media can be very helpful, too. But most of my copying has been oil masterworks, from Goya to Leyendecker to Rembrandt to Rockwell. Recently I unearthed a copy I made more than 20 years ago of a beautiful work by Francisco Goys. It is a portrait of Maria Garcia Perez de Castro, who was known to friends as Sabasa. Goya painted her in 1804, supposedly after he saw her while he was doing her uncle's portrait. Struck by her beauty, he asked permission to portray her as well. The actual portrait was very challenging, particularly, the shawl. If you click the link above you can compare the original to my copy.

Anthony's Garden

"Anthony's Garden," wc/ink on paper

Last weekend the sketchers decided to visit different parts of the city for plein air work. I went to a private garden in the Sherman Hill district of Des Moines, which is an area of houses and apartments dating to a period from the late 19th century to the early 20th, with many fine examples of Victorian architecture. One of the places we sometimes go is this private garden, which Anthony, the owner and gardener, has made into an oasis of green filled with flowers, fountains, any much more. 

It was a warm, sunny day and my companion and I had a wonderful couple of hourse. 

The workflow on this one began as a graphite drawing, then it was painted, then inked.  

Honeysuckle Haze

"Honeysuckle Haze, watercolor on paper, 7x5

This watercolor dates to a few weeks ago, after my post about the hazy green of spring, but before warming temperatures and abundant rain brought the flush of new green to trees and undergrowth. These hardy, brushy plants open tiny yellow-green buds over dark ground and twiggy wood before nearly any other plants. The creek even looks dark this time of year. 

Even two weeks after my first sketch the tiny honeysuckle leaves had opened only a little, their green haze thicker and more obscuring. The other visible greens came from sparse grass along the banks. .

I painted this from my studio window, looking north along Druid Hill Creek.